


Second Chance Stubborn

by Siria



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Steggy Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:22:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21980863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: Steve wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that thinking he was a stubborn son of a bitch was the only thing that Bucky and Sam agreed on.
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 14
Kudos: 179





	Second Chance Stubborn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [littlereyofsunlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlereyofsunlight/gifts).



> Written for littlereyofsunlight for the Steggy Secret Santa 2019.

Steve wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that thinking he was a stubborn son of a bitch was the only thing that Bucky and Sam agreed on. Hell, it wasn’t like he’d have thought they were wrong. He’d kept a white-knuckled grip on life as a kid; had refused to take no for an answer during the war. And even on the other side of the ice, a whole century away from everything he’d ever known or wanted, stubbornness was what had kept him going. 

See the flat absence of recognition in your best friend’s eyes but keep breathing; grit your teeth against the pain of plummeting several storeys and pick yourself back up; heft the coffin carrying the body of the love of your too-long life and force yourself to put one foot in front of the other. Watch half the world crumble to dust around you and keep on going, because the alternative was to say that your grief outweighed your duty. 

Steve’s Ma had taught him better than that. 

And then suddenly he’d had a choice. Thanos was gone, his actions as close to undone as Steve and the others could make them, and Steve had had a choice. The first time this occurred to him, it brought him close to tears, his breath hitching painfully in his chest. There was work to do there and then; who was he to turn his face from that? 

But the possibility of a tomorrow was a hard thing to turn away from, even if that tomorrow lay more than seventy years in the past. And maybe stubbornness kept you alive, but Steve wasn’t sure any more if it let you live. He tried to imagine what advice Natasha would have given him if she were still here: would she have said _stay, stand your ground, we’re your family, fight_? Or would she have shaken her head, grinning slyly as she said _Rogers, doesn’t the very fact you’re asking me out loud mean you already know the answer_?

Steve hadn’t really known for sure that he was going to try it until he stepped up onto the platform: one foot in front of the other. Hell, he didn’t even know if something like this would work outside the pages of a comic book. He didn’t know that he’d land in a suitable timeline; didn’t know that Peggy would want him to stay. But he stepped up on the platform, and he made his decision, and once Steve was in, he was in. 

And now here he was, three days into his new future, or almost eighty years behind, depending on how you wanted to count things. He woke up slowly, feeling groggy from the rare luxury of letting his body have as much sleep as it wanted after so many years without. 

The morning light was just starting to slant through the bedroom curtains, and for a long, idle moment Steve let himself observe its slowly shifting angles. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been able to lie still like this, mind pleasantly blank, as the sun slowly revealed the items strewn across the top of the dresser—a hairbrush, a jar of cold cream, a dogeared paperback. It would make a good still-life, he thought. Maybe he could sketch it one day, if he decided to make a real go of art school this time. 

All thoughts of school scattered, though, when he felt Peggy shift against him.

“Good morning, darling,” Peggy said, dark hair in her eyes and her words muffled against his shoulder. She sounded half asleep still, her toes flexing absently against his shins, and Steve was so in love with her he could hardly breathe with it. 

“Hi there,” he said, shifting to press a kiss to her temple and then giving into the temptation to bury his fingers in the glory of her curls, stroking a thumb against the nape of her neck just to feel her shiver pleasurably against him.

“Have a good night?” she asked, sounding slightly more awake but still resting her head against his shoulder. Steve could tell that she was smiling. 

“Oh, you know,” Steve said, letting his eyes drift closed again. Her hair still smelled faintly of yesterday’s perfume. “It was okay.”

Even with his eyes closed, he could easily picture the look on Peggy’s face. “ _Just_ ‘okay’?”

“Well, you know, never had to sleep wearing something like this before.” Steve pulled his left hand out from under the covers and waggled the fingers at her, opening his eyes to watch how the morning light caught the gold band. “Real heavy. Might take some getting used to.”

Peggy’s expression shifted to something exasperated but that Steve thought he was maybe justified in also thinking of as _fond_. “I was rather thinking of some other aspects of last night, you know.”

“You were?” Steve pulled a considering face. “Guess you’ll have to refresh my memory.”

“Are you propositioning me, sir?” Peggy said in mock affront. She sat upright and prodded him in the bicep, something which might have been more intimidating if it hadn’t provided a very visual reminder that neither of them had been in much of a mood to think of pyjamas last night.

Steve shook his head. “No, I think your husband would have something to say about that.”

“Why, is he a terribly jealous man?” Peggy asked. She’d stopped prodding him with her finger and was now using it to trace lazy, soothing patterns into the skin of his shoulder and along his collarbone—a casual intimacy Steve hadn’t even thought to daydream about before, any of the times he’d let himself long for her. 

Steve shook his head again, tugging her back down to lie against him once more and curling even closer to her. “Just crazy for you, I think.”

“You think?” Peggy said lightly, smiling at him. There was never a photograph that could capture the intensity of her smile, Steve thought dizzily. 

“I know,” Steve said, trying to make her understand. “Peggy, I love you.”

“Darling, I know,” Peggy said, taking his hand in hers and cradling it against her breastbone. “You came back to me. I know.”

Sometimes stubbornness kept you alive—but sometimes, Steve thought as he leaned forward to kiss her, sometimes it let you live.


End file.
